Master of Arts [M.A] [Art and Design - Art History through Practice Pathway] From Cardiff Metropolitan University

The teaching centres on the world class collection in the National Gallery of Wales in Cardiff, which includes major works by Poussin, Claude, Gainsborough, Cezanne, Monet, Van Gogh and Rodin amongst others. Lectures and seminars will be supported by the first hand examination of particular works in the Gallery. The pathway is assessed partly through writing and partly through practice: there will be an opportunity for students to realise a curatorial intervention within the Museum or to participate in its voluntary work scheme. Some familiarity with art history is desirable but not essential.

The MA Art and Design - Art History through Practice Pathway at Cardiff Metropolitan University is structured around the practice of art history, which means that academic research and writing is embedded in a spectrum of activities that could include making, selecting and arranging objects, writing reviews and proposals, and participating in conferences. There is an emphasis on creative practice, but an art historical, rather than a fine art practice. This is not a studio-based MA.

We work closely with the Museum and the Museum collection. The art history centres on areas of strength within the Museum's holdings: European landscape art, British landscape art, Welsh art, Impressionism & Post-Impressionism, photography and contemporary art. The teaching does not cover all of this ground every year, but draws from it. The content changes to a certain extent, from year to year, depending on current and upcoming shows. There are also sessions addressing contemporary debates in curatorial practice; students are encouraged to question and look beyond current museological practice.

The pathway does not culminate in a standard dissertation, instead students are expected to select an artwork in the Museum's collection and propose an exhibition around it, accompanied by an academic essay setting out the research and the argument informing their proposal.

Career prospects :

The MA Art and Design acts as a gateway to research or advanced experimental practice. It has an option for students to focus on research (by taking the initial formal PG Cert Research Skills module) or by taking an alternative creative practice route both leading towards potential future MPhil/PhD study. Students taking the MA Art and Design align with specific research and experimental practice pathways, led by academic staff with established practice careers and/or advanced scholarship and research.

The MA Art and Design programme is designed to enable students to achieve the attributes of greater flexibility, adaptability, and individual responsibility and autonomy as professional artists, designers or researchers. The MA Art and Design programme aims to develop increasing creativity, self-reliance, initiative, and the ability to perform in rapidly changing environments as well as increasing competence with research skills and methods which will make graduates highly employable as academics and or researchers or enable them to develop an active and sustained practice as artists or designers.

All students' are expected to complete a portable 'record of achievement' and use their PDP to support employability and life-long learning, normally in the form of a blog, that integrates opportunities for self-reflection in programmes in order to help them develop as effective and confident learners.